


Apart, Together, Together Apart

by greenmtwoman



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Porn with Feelings, Porn with a little bit of Plot, Post-Book Canon sort of, alternating povs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 18:19:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29354844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenmtwoman/pseuds/greenmtwoman
Summary: Jaime is coming to Tarth.******Brienne is waiting for him on Tarth.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 82
Kudos: 163
Collections: The Exchange that was Promised: Jaime x Brienne Smut Swap 2021





	Apart, Together, Together Apart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [potato_writes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/potato_writes/gifts).



> For potato_writes, for the prompt Reunion. This what came out; I've never written for a prompt before, so I hope it's okay.

Jaime is coming to Tarth.

******

Brienne is waiting for him on Tarth.

******

**Day One**

It’s been more than six months. She spars with Podrick and trains every day until she can hardly lift her arm. She inspects Evenfall Hall from cellars to turrets. She meets with farmers and merchants, with shepherds and innkeepers and fisher folk. She pores over every detail of trade agreements late into the night until she falls into bed exhausted. Too tired, she hopes, to feel the maddening ache of his absence. He is coming soon. She doesn’t know exactly when his ship will reach the harbor, and she won’t stand gazing at the sea like a pining maiden. So she rides to the marble quarries and spends time with the miners and their wives and children. What little wealth Tarth has depends on them, and their welfare is her responsibility. She's a very responsible woman.

The trouble with riding, she finds, is that the seam of her breeches rubs maddeningly against her cunt and makes her squirm in the saddle. She wants to slip her hand beneath her smallclothes, but she concentrates instead on the condition of the road. The road is important. It needs regrading.

And Jaime is coming to Tarth.

******

The fucking ship is too fucking slow. It wallows like an overloaded fishing tub. Brienne is waiting for him, and Tarth is still only a smudge on the horizon. Jaime feels like jumping overboard and swimming to the damned island. It would be a relief if the cold water shriveled his too-eager cock. If he went below and unlaced himself, it would only take a few strokes to bring himself to climax, but he wants to wait. Wants to come with her eyes on him, not rutting alone in his bunk. There’s been too much of that since he saw her last.

******

They bring her word from the harbor when the ship arrives, carrying wine from the Arbor, spices, lemons and oranges from Dorne, things Tarth doesn’t produce – and one tall knight in the white cloak of the Kingsguard. Brienne greets him calmly in her solar and offers him refreshment, dismissing her steward and the servants after the food arrives. Food is good, but it’s not their primary hunger. When the door closes and they are alone they crash together like the waves against the shore. She manages to tear her lips from his to say, “You taste of the sea, and bilge water, and I don’t care.”

“You taste of horses and road dust, and I don’t care.”

******

It’s too much. He’s grinding against her like a boy, and maybe he should have brought himself off on the ship so he could last longer now, but he can’t, he can’t, her hand is on him and his hand is under her clothing and she’s wet and slippery and biting her lip and whimpering and his balls are tightening and she needs to stop stroking and rubbing but he’ll die if she stops and oh fuck… She muffles her cry by biting his shoulder, clenching around his fingers as her legs shake, and he comes hard, wetting her hand and their breeches. It’s fortunate that there is a bench near. They collapse on it. “Jaime, my love,” she says. “Welcome to Evenfall.”

******

**Day Two**

She wakes before him and studies him as he sleeps. She never gets tired of looking, saving up every detail to pore over when they’re apart. He looks younger when he sleeps, despite the gray in his hair and beard. She loves the lines on his face and at the corners of his eyes, but in sleep they’re smoothed out and she thinks she can see the eager lad who was knighted by Arthur Dayne. He doesn’t wake when she curls closer and puts her hand on his chest to feel his heartbeat. That’s enough for a while, but then she grows impatient. They have so little time. She lets her hand drift lower, running a fingertip down the line of hair bisecting his abdomen. She loves that, thinking of it as an arrow pointing the way for her. She ruffles the nest of curls around his cock. He’s half-hard already, a morning bonus. She strokes him lightly and brushes her fingers teasingly over the glans.

His eyes flutter open and squint at the morning sun. “Tell me I’m not still on that bloody ship, dreaming,” he says, clearing his throat.

She kisses him without taking her hand off his cock. “Not unless we’re having the same dream.” She rolls on top of him so that his hardness is trapped between her thighs and he can feel how wet she is.

Unexpectedly, he flips her. She lets out a startled whoop and giggles. She isn’t a woman who giggles but it’s a safe indulgence here, just as being captured under him is safe. She’s not in any hurry this morning, and neither, apparently, is he. He kisses her deeply and thoroughly, regardless of morning breath, his beard enjoyably scratchy. Very Jaime. Very here. Very hers.

******

Jaime doesn’t know if she has any duties planned this morning, but he intends to distract her from them for as long as he can. He runs his fingers through her hair, gently working the tangles out of it. Kisses her forehead, her eyebrows, her crooked nose. Her eyelids, which are so soft. Her eyelashes tickle his lips. Licks the curve of her ear and takes her earlobe between his teeth. Moves to her neck, her throat her collarbones. Her scars. Her hips are circling involuntarily against his and she strokes his back. She smells of sleep and woman and also of him. It’s the best smell he knows.

“Lie still,” he whispers.

“No! I can’t.”

“I just meant – let me do the work. Let me pleasure you.” He pays careful attention to each of her breasts. “I don’t want either of your little teats to feel favored over the other. I may not have a hand for each, but I have a hand and a mouth.”

“Used for talking.”

“Not only.” He sucks a nipple into his mouth, then moves to the other while the first stands up in response to the sudden coolness. He also loves the flat space between, where he can rest his head for a moment before kissing the soft skin of her stomach. She’s muscled and broad and strong, but that only accentuates the subtle curves and swells and soft places that he alone knows. He lifts her leg and kisses the arch of a foot and she kicks him. “Careful, wench.”

“You be careful!”

He laughs. The backs of her knees are ticklish too, but her thighs aren’t. He pushes them apart, and she willingly spreads herself. He uses his fingers first, gently separating the damp hairs so he can see her, pink and glistening. Fingers first, then his tongue gently flicking and circling, then his mouth sucking. She’s not only wet now, she’s swelling and her nub is hardening between his lips, hardening just as he is.

“So good,” she moans. “So good, please…”

“Let yourself go.”

“No, stop. Inside, I want you in me when I… hurry… Now…”

“Keep your eyes open.”

”Yes…”

Inside is the work of a moment, so wet and slippery and hot. Home, he is home. Her fingers have replaced his mouth where they are joined and she comes a moment later. When her spasms are through – and she has kept her eyes on him – he lets his own need take over and thrusts hard and fast, climaxing with a gasp and a groan.

******

They lie on their sides, facing one another.

“Jaime.”

“Say that again.”

“Jaime?”

“Do you know how seldom I hear my name? Just my name, with nothing added? I’m Lord Commander, or my lord, or Ser Jaime, or Lord Lannister, or Uncle Jaime to the king.” His mouth twists slightly. “Hardly ever just Jaime.”

“Jaime. I’ll say it as often as you like.” She pauses. “How is Tommen?”

“A good monarch. Better than the last few. Better than most. He’s diligent, hard-working, kind, wishes to be just. He’s still so young.”

“You can’t leave him.”

“Not yet. Today’s plotters and planners aren’t as clever as the unlamented Varys and Littlefinger, but there are always intrigues around the king.”

Brienne closes her eyes and thinks with resignation of moon tea.

******

They are discreet, but not secretive. Many on Tarth know that Ser Jaime Lannister is the Evenstar’s lover. Tarth is not the mainland. Life is simpler here, sometimes harder, and the people stay aloof as much as possible from the problems of the kingdoms. So it doesn’t surprise Brienne that outside her door she finds fresh-baked bread, butter, some of the oranges from Dorne and a flagon of ale with two goblets. They leave crumbs in the sheets, and their mouths taste of fruit.

The chambermaids don’t enter, or even knock, until they see her door left open and the room empty. They say nothing of the undisturbed bed in the quarters ostensibly assigned to Jaime. It means less work for them.

******

**Day Three**

Jaime wades cautiously into the rocky pool. The water is both clear and dark, fed by mountain springs and lying in a basin of gray granite. He looks up to where the sun strikes the cliff above, not paying enough attention to his companion.

“Don’t be timid! It’s worse that way.”

He yelps as Brienne gives him a hearty shove into the waterfall. One of the horses throws up its head and whinnies in alarm. “It’s freezing!”

“It’s invigorating! Just the thing after a hot ride.”

“You want my balls frozen?”

She laughs at him and tips her head back, letting the water stream over her face and through her hair. “This is just a little waterfall.” They’re a few hours ride above Evenfall. The sun makes rainbows in the spray. There’s food for later in their saddlebags. The pool is too small for real swimming, but they splash about and Jaime has to admit that the water is refreshing after the first shock.

Splashing and shoving give way after a time to embracing and kissing. “Why haven’t you brought me here before?” he asks.

“I’d forgotten about it for a long time; I hadn’t been here since I was a child. Then I was trying to think of a place where no one could find me. Sometimes I just need to be away from everyone; they all want something, or have a question to be answered, or want me to make their decisions for them. I want a place to be alone.”

“You’re not alone now.”

“You don’t count.”

He tries to look offended but can’t manage it; he knows what she is saying. In any case, she forestalls comment by pulling him close and wrapping her legs around his hips. The buoyancy of the water makes it intriguingly simple. His balls and his cock are apparently not frozen after all. “I’ve got you,” he murmurs into her neck. This is difficult to do on land, even leaning against a wall, but amazingly easy in the rock pool. He has the fleeting thought that they could have done this at Harrenhal. Yes, that would have been likely, with him half-dead and her still mostly despising him. Then thought flees.

After, they lie naked in the sun and he wonders if she will become even more freckled.

******

**Day Four**

There’s a village council meeting she wants to attend. Not wants to, but should. One of the reasons Tarth is unconcerned with Jaime’s presence in her life is that they know she doesn’t neglect her people. Yesterday, the Evenstar was briefly absent from her duties. Today she is present, walking into the village hall and taking her place to one side. She doesn’t need to oversee a minor decision about grazing rights, but she wants to hear about it with her own ears. How can she know what the lives of the shepherds are like if she’s only told secondhand?

She left Jaime in bed. Unlike her, he’s never been a natural early riser, though, to be fair, he’s always up at dawn if called by his own duties.

She returns to Evenfall Hall in the afternoon, bearing gifts of goat and sheep’s milk cheeses and bunches of grapes for the kitchens. She hears that Jaime has been in the training yard, giving pointers on left-handed fighting, but he’s not there now. She returns to her rooms, eager to get out of her sweaty clothes and into something lighter.

He’s sprawled on her bed, naked as his nameday, waiting. She stops dead in the entrance and then hastily slams the door. His legs are spread. He smiles lazily, his hand moving slowly up and down on his cock, not chasing release but keeping himself hard for her. She is instantly flushed red. Jaime is here, in my bed waiting for me. Wanting me.

“Come here,” he says, his voice soft and deep. “Do you like what you see?”

She nods, her eyes wide. She tries to regain some of her composure. “The last time I unexpectedly found a man in my chamber he was cleaning the chimney. That was very useful.”

“But not nearly as decorative, I’d imagine.”

“Not unless a woman likes soot.” She loosens her laces. “I’m sweaty.”

“I like you sweaty. I haven’t bathed since training; I’m sweaty too. Bath after?”

He watches as she removes her clothes; she still feels awkward doing this. There’s nothing graceful about her tugging and hopping on one foot, nor alluring about her leather and wool. And he’s so beautiful. But there are ways in which she can seize the advantage. “Bath after. But only if you sit on the edge of the bed now.”

He raises his eyebrows, intrigued. “Like this?”

“Like that.” She makes him wait, takes her time collecting her dirty clothes and placing them on a chest; the maids will take them later.

“Now what?”

“This.” She drops to her knees, pushing his apart. His cock has subsided to half-mast, and she blows gently on it, not touching him yet, and smiles up at him. Then she looks down again, watching him harden and thicken. She swipes the tip with her tongue and blows again on the wetness.

He gasps. “Please,” he says, and then, “but I can’t reach you from here.” His hand is grasping the sheet.

“Later. What do you want now?”

His hips jerk forward. “Touch me. Your hand, your mouth…”

She runs a finger thoughtfully down his length and circles the ridge of the head. A drop of moisture leaks out. “I can do that.”

“Stop torturing me!”

She laughs as she finally puts her mouth to him, first licking and then sucking. He’s extremely sensitive on the underside just behind the glans, and he hisses and groans when she uses her tongue there before she takes him deeper. The slurping noises her mouth makes are comical, but that’s what sex is like, both silly and sublime. She cups his balls and presses behind them on the hardness there. It still amazes her that she is so wanton with him, but she loves the way he looks at times like this, head thrown back, cords standing out on his neck. He’s thrusting involuntarily now, and he puts his hand on her head and gasps her name in warning. She shakes her head in negation.

“Fuck, Brienne, oh fuck, don’t stop, I can’t stop, I’m… I’m going to come, I’m going to… gods, I’m coming now, now…”

He pulses and jerks in her mouth. She doesn’t really like the taste, if she is totally honest, but she likes doing this to and with him. He’s softening, and when she looks up again his eyes are hazy and his chest is heaving. She wipes her mouth on the sheet and he lifts her up to him. They tumble backward onto the bed, and she realizes that her knees are sore. She is also tremendously aroused. “Jaime…”

“Time to call the maids for that bath?”

“Jaime!”

He grins smugly, and then it is her turn to grasp the bed and moan. It’s another hour before they call for the hot water to be brought. Dinner is even later.

******

**Day Five**

They are tired. She invited the household knights and the nearer lordlings to a modest feast. After all, the Kingslayer is something of a legend, and they all want to see him. Few call him that any longer, and when they do, it’s without malice. The true story has quietly circulated over the years. Ser Jaime Lannister’s more recent deeds are better remembered and more consequential. Many of those in attendance were children, or not even born, when Aerys died. They see the Lord Commander, they see a hero of the war, they see a formidable left-handed swordsman who lost his other hand in some no doubt heroic way. (The details of that, and the Evenstar’s role in it, are hazy.)

Jaime is charming and golden and just a bit arrogant. He’s very good at this sort of thing, just as she is not. It’s a relief that most eyes are on him, not her, but she’s also sorry that he has to spend his time and energy on practiced smiles so different from the soft ones he gives her in private.

They’ve finally gotten to bed and gathered each other close. They kiss slowly, deeply and sweetly for a time. His hand is on her breast. The palm is calloused, not rough. It’s like hers; the skin has been worn smooth and tough as old leather by years of gripping and sparring. But when she reaches for his cock, he captures her fingers and says, “I’m sorry.”

“Why?”

He shuts his eyes and swallows, embarrassed. “I’m not… I can’t…”

She props herself on her elbow. “Oh. By the Seven… It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters to me.”

“Jaime. Are you saying that it matters that you’re forty-six, not sixteen?”

“I want to please you.”

“You do please me. In every way. Do you think you’re what your cock can do?” Silence. “If you find that I’m not wet, do you doubt my feelings?”

“That’s different.”

“Not so different as you think. Come here.” She cradles his head against her chest. “When we’re ninety…”

“Wench, when you’re ninety, I’ll be one hundred and five!”

“Yes, you will be. And I’ll still want to talk to you, listen to you, look at you, hold you – every part of you, no matter how it looks or functions.”

“I’ll be dead.”

“Maybe I will be, too. Or maybe not. In either case, I’ll still love you. Now go to sleep.”

******

**Day Six**

They spar the next day, for the instruction and entertainment of the household and their visitors. The bouts are cheered enthusiastically. Jaime wonders if any of them realize that he and Brienne are not the fighters they once were. Oh, they’re still very good, could still defeat any of this lot without much trouble, but… Jaime knows that he’s slower now and tires more easily. He can even see an occasional weakness in Brienne, and he exploits it without scruple. She doesn’t concede anything to his aging skills, so he does likewise. She still forces him to yield three times out of four, her eyes sparkling, until she agrees to fight him left-handed. Then he has the advantage.

She rises from the dirt when he takes his blade from her throat and immediately delivers a stern lecture to the onlookers. “This is why you must train with both hands. If you haven’t done so, start right now. Ser Jaime has worked harder than any of you can imagine in order to relearn everything he knew, so he could be the best again.” Jaime shakes his head at that, but Brienne ignores him. “I’ll never be his equal with my left, but I’d be better if I had started sooner. At least one day a week all of you should train with your other hand. And, yes, if any of you favor your left, you should train with your right. You never know what fate and the gods will bring.”

He smiles at the sight of her, face smudged with dirt and sweat, hair straggling, a frown making that line between her eyebrows. His lady, his knight, his star of the evening; she’s stern and fierce and loving and protective. And underneath is the softness that is only for him.

******

It’s their last night. Tomorrow the ship will return for him. It has stopped at Estermont and visited the Stepstones. Tomorrow it will load the blocks of Tarth marble, white as his cloak, that are waiting on the wharf, destined for the ongoing rebuilding of King’s Landing. Tonight he is eager, but deliberate. This is a night of slow, molten loving. He brings her to the edge, enters her and thrusts slowly until she clenches around him. Stays hard, stays inside her as she recovers, then lets her build and throb again. Slowly, slowly, again and again.

They doze and wake and reach sleepily for each other. He doesn’t let himself climax. He doesn’t want this to end, even though his arousal is close to pain.

Finally Brienne, sweaty and limp, tightens her arms around him and says, “Come for me, Jaime. That’s all I want now, to feel you come inside me.” He finally lets himself thrust hard and fast, and it’s so good… it’s always good, but this is… it seems to last beyond a few spurts, spreading through every part of his body, making his toes curl and his arms and legs shake. He collapses at last, grateful that Brienne is strong, that he has no fear of crushing her as she holds him and kisses his temple. “I love you,” he says, “I love you, love you…”

*****

“I love you,” she murmurs as she feels him softening and slipping out of her. She doesn’t want to lose their physical connection, but that is the way of it. She settles him more comfortably against her. “I love you.” She shows him in every way she can but she’s oddly reluctant to say the words too often. She fears that if she starts she’ll be unable to stop and then she’ll never be able to let him go.

The night is moving toward the morning, and this is their last time. In too few hours, he’ll be sailing away from her. Again. If theirs is a love story, it’s one made up of farewells. They’ve been separated before; they’ve said goodbye over and over. It never makes a difference. Each time she sees him, he’s still Jaime, still the most beautiful, sarcastic, difficult, honorable man she knows. She will want him for the rest of her life, and if there's something beyond, she will want him then, too.

******

**Day Seven**

They break their fast in her chambers; it might be more appropriate to take a final meal with the household, but she’s not feeling generous this morning. “What will your duties require of you next?”

Jaime looks… calculating is the word that comes to mind. It’s not a common expression on his face. “Well… I expect the king will require reports from the Stormlands on any steps taken to guard against piracy.”

“We’ve had little trouble…”

“Brienne.” He smiles. “Nonetheless. The Houses will be expected to send representatives to King’s Landing.”

“As the Lord Commander will advise His Grace?”

“Naturally.”

“King’s Landing.” She sighs. It’s better on Tarth. They’re happier on Tarth, but it’s hard for Jaime to find reasons to visit. Ostensible reasons. And it’s only right that the Lady of Tarth should, like any other vassal, pay periodic homage to the throne.

On Tarth, they are discreet, but not secretive. In King’s Landing they must be secretive, though the court is anything but discreet. Tommen still seems happily oblivious. If there are rumors about them, they are treated as a jape. A jape because they are too ridiculous to be true, or a jape because, if they are true, it’s even more absurd. She’s older now, though, and tougher. She gets her own amusement from holding her head up among women whose glances linger, disbelieving that Jaime could want her, that he looks past their delicate features and full breasts and finds her over their heads. So. She’ll go to King’s Landing.

******

Jaime’s white cloak snaps in the breeze as they watch the loading of the ship. She has Oathkeeper strapped to her hip. He keeps his eyes on the harbor as he says quietly, “Tommen would release me if I asked. Someday I will ask. You’ll need me to teach those left-handed fighters you were haranguing the other day.”

“You’d be adequate, I admit.”

Now he grins at her. “Who won our last bout?”

“Which one are you talking about?”

He slips his arm through hers, serious again. “Tommen still needs me. He needs his Lord Commander. His Uncle Ser Jaime. His father. I’ll stay until he doesn’t.”

“When?” She tries hard not to sound either wistful or resentful. He doesn’t need that from her, and she likes to think she’s better than that, though she isn’t, really.

“When Tommen’s goodness is like yours. Strong enough to stand alone.”

The captain approaches them. “I want to catch the tide,” he says. “You need to come aboard now, Lord Commander.”

They don’t embrace. Those farewells have been given in private. He takes her hand, laces their fingers together and kisses hers, but to all appearances it’s no more than a lord’s courtesy to a lady. She inclines her head. “Goodbye, Ser Jaime. It’s always an honor to have you visit Tarth.”

“Goodbye, Ser Brienne.” He slowly releases her hand and turns to the gangplank.

Tomorrow she will bathe. Her sheets will be washed, and his scent will be gone. The faint red marks of his beard, mouth and hands are already disappearing from her skin. She feels herself firming up inside. When she is with Jaime, she melts and blooms… She halts her runaway thoughts. What a singularly inapt image, melting and blooming. But that’s how she feels in his presence. When they’re apart, some portion of her is locked away, and he has the key. She thinks that it is the same for him. Or perhaps martial imagery is better for them; sword to a scabbard, dagger to a sheath, arrow to a target… She laughs at herself. Jaime hates archers, and her metaphors are absurdly scrambled.

He lifts his hand as the sailors shout and cast off the mooring lines. The gap between the ship and the wharf widens quickly, but they keep their eyes on each other. She watches until the ship passes the breakwater and his figure grows indistinct. Then she turns away and doesn’t look back.

******

Brienne will go to King’s Landing.

******

Jaime will be waiting for her in King’s Landing.

**Author's Note:**

> Like most writers, I love comments! Please feel free to let me know what I could do better.


End file.
